Organic is generally bunk deal for everyone but places like Whole Foods. Having worked in the food industry for over a decade, I've dealt with a lot of vendors and farmers. A lot of farmers have to deal with randomization in crop yield due to the way seeds grow outside of a super controlled environment, not to mention that veggies aren't uniform so you end up with a lot of variation, which means you have issues marketing the "funny" shaped ones to restaurants etc. So not only do they tend to have semi-random yields, but they also have semi-random ability to actually sell their yield. The price increase reflects the fact that to a degree, as well as the work to fit into specific hippy-standards for getting that Organic label.
I'm all about supporting local growers and what have you, but getting that price bump for an organic sticker chafes me a tad, even if I'm no longer in the industry. Cali, however, has a lot of pushback against more commercialized farming methods, so you end up having extra transportation fees attached to a lot of the GMO products depending on distance. Very much a damned if you do/damned if you don't situation for certain types of crops (limes were retarded expensive 3 years ago when trying to purchase in bulk, due to them requiring a 4+ hour transportation time and nearby farms had crap yields due to the drought) and it really makes me dislike the hippification of our farm industry in recent years. A nice tomato from your home garden or a local farm is great. Paying 2-3x the price because the locals refuse to have GMO crops nearby and then nature tells the hippy farmers to fuck off via weather sucks.
